Republican Women raise awareness of human trafficking
Group hosted event to help fund nonprofit’s work
The nightmare of human trafficking and slavery is not just something that happens in other countries, but is happening here in Southern Maryland and elsewhere in the United States, a representative of an organization that supports survivors told Charles County residents Sunday.
“The problem of sexual slavery and human trafficking is here in Southern Maryland, in Maryland in the United States,” said Charlotte Vass, a volunteer with the nonprofit Women At Risk International, a Michigan-based nonprofit that seeks to aid the victims of human trafficking. “It’s not just a problem ‘over there’; it’s right here.”
The Republican Women of Charles County hosted an event Sunday at the Holiday Inn in La Plata to help raise awareness and funds to support women and children who have survived human trafficking and slavery.
“Human trafficking has been called a fate worse than death,” said RWCC President Bernadette Smith. “Victims are held prisoner and often starved, raped, beaten, shamed and forced into drug use. The RWCC fully supports Women at Risk and all they do help these women and children who have endured so much suffering.”
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline reported 7,621 cases of human trafficking in the U.S. in 2016, 77 percent of which involved sex trafficking. The hotline reported 4,460 cases for the first half of 2017.
Vass said the Washington Metropolitan Area has all of the major ingredients for human trafficking, including a large interstate highway, an international airport, bus stops and train stations
and poverty.
“Maryland is prime territory,” Vass said.
According to the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force, 396 survivors of human trafficking were identified and provided assistance in Maryland in 2014. Of those, 381 were trafficked for sexual purposes, the remainder were labor trafficking victims. The vast majority, 375, were U.S. citizens.
“Human trafficking and sexual slavery is the No. 1 business for crime syndicates now, because a woman or child is ‘recyclable’ six or seven times a night,” Vass said.
Women At Risk provides safe places for victims to heal from abuse, trafficking and exploitation, partnering with other organizations in the U.S. and internationally to provide shelter, education, training and medical assistance, according to its website.
“Women At Risk is really about creating circles of protection,” Vass said. “We partner with other organizations in WAR’s mission to rescue, redeem and restore women and children to lives of dignity,” Vass said.
WAR markets and sells handmade items made by former victims of human trafficking, the funds from which go to support victims and the group’s international and U.S. safehouses for victims, Vass said.
“[Former victims] are taught skills and given medical support so they can get an education and learn a trade so they can support themselves when they leave the safe houses,” Vass said.
Smith said she first learned about WAR and its work years ago from her dentist, and when she became president of RWCC, she thought Vass would make a good guest speaker.
Rita Underwood, RWCC member, thanked Vass and the RWCC for bringing this to her attention.
“I loved this event. It was very eye opening and educational, albeit scary and sad,” Underwood said in an email.
More information about WAR can be found on its website, warinternational.org.
More information about the Republican Women of Charles County can be found on their Facebook page or by emailing Republicanwomenofcharlescounty@gmail.com.